OMB Watch also has a long history of using technology for public policy activities. Since the mid-1980s, OMB Watch has advocated policies to strengthen access to federal government information, but has stepped up that agenda as the Internet has become more ubiquitous. In 1989 we started RTK NET, an online service providing government data to community groups. Today, RTK NET is home to roughly 500,000 searches per month. In 1998, we launched the Agenda for Access project, a two year project aimed at building a base of local, state, and national groups interested in public access, developing tools to promote the public's right-to-know, and making specific recommendations for improved public policies.

In late 1997, after spending a year coordinating NonProfit America, which was a research effort to discuss use of technology in the nonprofit sector, OMB Watch launched the Nonprofits' Policy & Technology (NPT) Project. The project, which concluded under its original parameters in October 2000, was a three-year initiative to educate the nonprofits about using newer information technologies to strengthen public policy participation. This included an outreach effort and pilot grants programs to highlight and evaluate use of technology in public policy work; demonstration efforts around use of higher-end technologies in nonprofit environments; and education and technical assistance work to analyze organizational capacity issues with respect to technology.

Through the work of our Community Education Center, we provide timely alerts and updates on policy issues affecting nonprofit advocacy. To accommodate the growing demand of nonprofit technology information requests, OMB Watch started NPTalk, a daily information service around nonprofit technology and policy issues around its use, in March 1999. We found that people read and used the information provided through NPTalk, which ceased operation in January 2002, in various policy applications. We have also conducted extensive research on barriers to nonprofit advocacy and policy participation through the Strengthening Nonprofit Advocacy Project (SNAP), including extensive surveys, focus-group sessions, and interviews with nonprofit leaders.

NPTalk and SNAP both reinforced the need for the development of an online resource to help facilitate greater awareness and increased participation in policy matters by nonprofits. In November 1999, OMB Watch convened representatives from 40 nonprofits to discuss the need for an online resource around nonprofit policy participation. The overwhelming response was that such a resource was needed, and over the course of two years, OMB Watch conducted discussions, surveys, and research around a wide range of advocacy related topics, in order to define a content framework and to identify starting points for the information that currently populates NPAction.

To that end, a substantive review of existing efforts commenced in 2000, along with testing of various information delivery models. During winter of 2000-2001, OMB Watch issued an RFP and reviewed vendors. Initial programming began on NPAction in Spring 2001, with an alpha version of the site delivered in Fall 2001. From Spring 2001-2002, OMB Watch staff conducted a review of issues and topics drawn from SNAP research, NPTalk archives, and discussions with nonprofit leadership and staff within national and state-level infrastructure groups.

Those discussions formed the initial content outline for the site, and led to a series of discussion groups around proposed information and services during Summer 2002 in Boston, MA; Baltimore, MD; and Lexington, KY. After review of input and feedback from those groups, as well as a set of dedicated testers, NPAction was launched in November 2002 in a public pilot version, to allow for greater nonprofit feedback before the launch of a more robust and refined version anticipated for early 2003.

In most situations, OMB Watch is perceived as a collaborator. That is why we have received strong support for NPAction. Many nonprofits trust our judgment and know that we will highlight and credit good materials regardless of who has developed them, and continue to advocate and inform increased and substantive nonprofit sector participation.